Thank you, Matt, for passing that over.
Thank you, members of the standing committee. It's a pleasure to be here today and represent Yukon.
Just to build on what Matt said, the agriculture industry is small, but locally, it's very important for Yukon. This has become probably even more evident during the COVID-19 pandemic. There is a strong demand for Yukon locally grown and processed food. There is a strong support from Yukoners to have these things available for Yukoners.
I'll give you just a little history. Prior to 2006, our regional capacity for inspected slaughter of livestock was limited to one facility. It was located where it was relatively difficult to get animals to the abattoir and back out to market. In 2006, the Yukon government purchased the mobile abattoir to help facilitate farmers to raise livestock, and help grow and support that industry.
The current situation in Yukon is that we don't have any federally inspected meat for local abattoirs, but we do have territorial inspected meat. That works fine for our local industry, right now. Since 2006, we've seen a lot of growth, and it continues to grow. There's a lot of support, locally, for self-sufficiency and supporting local farmers. Today, we have two private abattoirs, and we still operate our one mobile abattoir around the south.
Just to give you context, we're not dealing in thousands or tens of thousands of animals; we're dealing with hundreds of animals. In 2020, partly due to the pandemic, we have seen a sharp increase in that. We've seen a 40% increase in red meat. Last year was the first year we had white meat abattoir ready to go, and we've seen an increase in production in that sense.
Our programs do support local meat production that we operate in Yukon, and it's basically to help increase our self-sufficiency. There's a lot of room for more local growth in the sector to feed Yukoners. As farms increase production, the need for processing facilities will continue to be a challenge for us in terms of these things. We're working with local farmers and our local agriculture associations to help overcome these challenges right now.